The Forbidden Pool
by Romula1
Summary: Wearied and injured from battle, Faramir returns to Henneth Annun only to discover he is not alone. Really tiny ficlet - please r+r!!


The Forbidden Pool  
  
The pool shone silver in the moonlight, the ripples casting eery waves of light over the leaves of the trees. He relaxed as soon as he saw it because it always meant safety. His injured arm was throbbing and he thought with longing of the medical supplies in the cave.  
  
An odd shivering of the ripples' rhythm made him pause though. He took a few tentative steps to the waters' edge and peered in. The water was dark and now seemed threatening to the battle-weary man. He shuddered and backed away from his haggard reflection, putting the odd movement of the water down to the fish.  
  
"Help me!"  
  
The cry was harsh and terrified, and he spun around with such speed that his footing on the wet grass was challenged for a moment. For a long while nothing unusual could be seen in the water, but then a pale arm rose from the swirling depths. The arm was tinted with the silver of the water and the wounds streaking along it were maroon. The fingers were puckered like those that have been in liquid for too long.  
  
His automatic reaction was to reach for his bow, and though he was injured he still moved with horrific speed. The pool was forbidden, and anyone who had entered it was doomed to die by his hand; he had sworn so to his own father and lord.  
  
As he took a second to measure the position the intruder's body would be in relation to their arm, another set of ripples broke the pattern. The hair on the head that emerged shone with a slick blue sheen that made it look like the seaweed on the docks at Dol Amroth.  
  
"Help me..." the voice said again, this time a mere whisper.  
  
Pointed ears protruded from each side of the head and they were as pale as the arm. The hair splayed over them, turning from slick to stringy in a centimetre. The eyes were hidden by the dark strands but the nose had an unhealthy pink glow to it and the lips were as blue as the silver falls crashing down behind the creature.  
  
His hands tightened their grip on the bow and arrow, pulling the point of it off course. He said nothing, but could not draw his eyes away as the arm lowered back into the water and the chin came up. The water tugged at the hair that fell into it and its currents pulled the hair back and away from the face, as though opening the curtains on a window.  
  
Before he could get a good look at her face, she went under again, the last thing to go being her purple eyes. They shone out at him with starlight from around the grazes on her face. He gave a gasp as she disappeared and let his arrow drop.  
  
For a few minutes he waited, standing at the edge of the water on the slippery rocks, but he saw no more sign of her, and with a frown he turned away, attributing it to blood loss and stress.  
  
"Won't you help me?"  
  
He didn't turn around immediately. Fearing a trick of the mind, he just bent to pick up the arrow he'd dropped. Yet as he slipped it back into his quiver, a cold vice-like grip took his ankle.  
  
It took all his balance to keep himself from falling backwards to join the visage in the pool, and he dropped his bow in the process. He fell to his knees, the hand still wrapped about his leg. "What do you want?" he gasped, half turning.  
  
Now that she was closer to him her eyes no longer looked purple. They were just a very clear blue and the starlight still shone from them. "Help me." She repeated. He could also now see her bare shoulder, and it too was hatched with cuts.  
  
"Who are you? What has happened to you?"  
  
She peered up at him through the wet hair, her delicate face seeming to shine with a fading inner glow. "I fell. Orcs have taken the Garden and I was chased. I fell into the river."  
  
He looked down in sudden unreasoning repulsion and tried to pull away from her grip. "You're an elf." It was not a query. Though he had always admired the legendary elves of history and wondered about the legendary elves of the present, he had never thought of them in any other way but graceful, majestic and in control.  
  
She drew a deep and weary breath, and for a moment he saw past the mortally wounded to the immortal.  
  
"Help me." Hers was not a query either.  
  
"What can I do? All I am permitted to do is put you out of your suffering with an arrow."  
  
Her other hand reached up to take hold of his wrist, for he had turned to face her on the rocks now. He resisted the urge to pull away. She released his ankle then with her free hand she ensnared his shoulder. He winced and nearly cried out as her fingers put cruel pressure upon his wounds. The she pulled, and he found himself falling forwards, down, towards her, towards the water, towards his own reflection.  
  
Underwater nothing was clear. There was silver and blue and black and white, and innumerable small bubbles that danced around his own flailing arms. There was a roaring in his ears, part from the water, part from a need for oxygen. He felt hands tugging him in all directions, left, right, up, down.  
  
The air seemed colder when he finally broke the surface, and he cursed as he saw his clothes now thrown upon the rocks he had been standing on. His shoulder burned with a fire of liquid nitrogen where the water had seeped into his wounds.  
  
"Help me." The words were now a command, and he turned to face the speaker. She swam towards him, the water swirling about her like a vortex.  
  
She took hold of either side of his neck and kissed him, pushing him backwards and under the water again.  
  
* * *  
  
The wind tickled the sun, and the sun tickled the grass, and the grass tickled the man who lay on it. His cloak had been tenderly tucked over him, though his other garments were neatly folded by his sword, quiver and bow underneath a tree.  
  
The pool rippled and undulated with its normal rhythm as the water toppled down into it from above and the man awoke gently and peacefully. He did not seem at all surprised to be there, nor did he seem surprised that the wound on his arm was completely healed. 


End file.
